Fiber Bragg Sensors on Strain Analysis of Power Transmission Lines

The reliability and safety of power transmission depends first and foremost on the state of the power grid, and mainly on the state of the high-voltage power line towers. The steel structures of existing power line supports (towers) have been in use for many years. Their in-service time, the variability in structural, thermal and environmental loads, the state of foundations (displacement and degradation), the corrosion of supporting structures and lack of technical documentation are essential factors that have an impact on the operating safety of the towers. The tower state assessment used to date, consisting of finding the deviation in the supporting structure apex, is insufficient because it omits the other necessary condition, the stress criterion, which is not to exceed allowable stress values. Moreover, in difficult terrain conditions the measurement of the tower deviation is very troublesome, and for this reason it is often not performed. This paper presents a stress-and-strain analysis of the legs of 110 kV power line truss towers with a height of 32 m. They have been in use for over 70 years and are located in especially difficult geotechnical conditions—one of them is in a gravel mine on an island surrounded by water and the other stands on a steep, wet slope. Purpose-designed fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors were proposed for strain measurements. Real values of stresses arising in the tower legs were observed and determined over a period of one year. Validation was also carried out based on geodetic measurements of the tower apex deviation, and a residual magnetic field (RMF) analysis was performed to assess the occurrence of cracks and stress concentration zones.